 Yeah, let's put that as the big idea of the board discussion so people don't have to get through the media or whatever. Yep. Yep. Any non-candidacy and actually since my eyes are not as stellar as they were in my youth? I got to go. Nobody's raised my hand. Yeah, and someone just wants to shout out, otherwise sounds like we don't have anyone. All right, great. There it is. There it is. Where? Oh, okay. Kristen. Hi, how are you? My name is Kristen. Thanks for having us here tonight. I'm a resident of Montpelier and I just wanted to express my hope that the board will encourage the governor to use the surplus education funds for education as opposed to a rebate for homeowners. I feel that pitting homeowners against schoolchildren was probably not the best thing to do and I think anyone deserves a rebate in this time. It's these kids who have really lost out in education and it's a it's a one-time opportunity and I would hope that the school board would be the advocates for schoolchildren because they don't have a voice in our government right now. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Hi, thanks everyone. My name is Eva Zarrett. I'm a public health specialist at Central Vermont Medical Center and I'm here tonight with Dr. Mark Detman. I'll let him introduce himself. Hi, I'm Mark Detman. I'm an ER doctor at CVMC. I've been there for almost 15 years now and I've got a particular focus on alcohol and drug dependence and the treatment of that. I'm part of the coalition that Eva's going to mention to you and we offer 24-7 services to people looking for help with alcohol and drug dependence but that's not why I'm here tonight. I'm here tonight because primary prevention is one of our prime motives and primary prevention starts in schools and homes. So let Eva take over. Great. Thanks Mark. Let me lower my hand. It's distracting. So like Mark said, we both work for CVMC but we're also here representing the Central Vermont Prevention Coalition or CDPC which is an interdisciplinary collaboration of professional organizations and agencies working in the fields of drug and alcohol prevention, harm reduction, treatment recovery. We also have representation from restorative justice and law enforcement and housing and use services. So a wide range of folks are at the table and the hospital serves as the backbone member of the coalition. The coalition's mission over the past seven years is to create a harmonized and stigma-free system of care in Central Vermont where there's no wrong door or wrong time to get help for substance use disorders or addictions to drug and alcohol and to prevent the initiation of substance use like Mark said. The reason that we're here tonight is to let you know about a series of virtual community forums that we're doing across Central Vermont. They're organized by Supervisory Union. So we held our first one last month for Central Vermont Supervisory Union which is sort of the Northfield Orange area and it was a real success and our next one is slated for the Montpelier Rocksbury School District on March 8th at 6 p.m. It was previously in February of right in the middle of February break so we decided to move it to March and we're here asking for your help in promoting the event to your school communities including parents, staff, teachers, administrators and students because a lot of what we'll be talking about that night focuses on primary prevention in youth. I just want to take a minute to tell you a little bit about the forums and then answer any questions you have. So at the forum we bring a panel of experts from some of our partner organizations to let people know about resources that are available in Central Vermont for drug and alcohol related issues and they're also available for Q&A. Then we center the conversation around primary prevention in youth and young adults and we share data that's specific to your region because even though Vermont is a small state and even though Central Vermont's a relatively small region students really differ from school district to school district or Supervisory Union to Supervisory Union. So for example in one school district we might be concerned that students have low rates of thinking that the being is harmful or that their parents think it's bad while in Montpelier that's not really what we're concerned about. Here we're more concerned about some things like higher use rates when compared to the state average for drinking alcohol, attending school, under the influence being sold illegal drugs on campus, even some cocaine use among other things. So once we sort of set the stage and really focused it in this hyper regional way we move into the open forum for community members where we as professionals learn about what they see as issues, strengths, opportunities and primary prevention and we move into actions that we think that the community could take based on our analysis of the data like I mentioned before. So they're really specific to Montpelier and we also listed ideas from the community so that these ideas are community-born and community-driven and at the end of the night we make sure that folks are connected so they know how to take action when the forum is over. So that's a look at what we're planning on doing it is going to be virtual. Again we'd appreciate any support that you can give us in promoting an event like this it's really important students and people around Vermont are really struggling with substance use during the pandemic including a lot of co-occurring mental health and substance use issues. So we'd be happy to answer any questions that you all might have or give you a little more info if you need it. Thanks. Excellent thank you. Any other public comment? Can I just add Eva, do you have a wishlist for this group as to what they might be able to do to help us broadcast this a bit? Other supervisory unions have been able to do things like put an announcement in a school newsletter or put something on a website. These are things that would be really helpful for us helping us share the event. We have a Facebook event helping share that on social media can be helpful and any other avenues that you have for getting information out to parents, staff and students. So if you have a person that we could reach out to with that information that would be fantastic. Yeah Eva and I'm sorry Dr. Deppman. On this call is Anna Hicko who's my executive assistant and she deals with all of our communications she's also our communications director. So Anna is the best person to reach out to with those kind of things. Okay great thank you so much. Can I just add that it would be great if you could email I mean my email address is on the website Emma Bay Hansen but we have access to some face groups and stuff that Anna doesn't and it does a great job with promoting events. We can share what Anna shares but it might be nice to share a direct link to the event. If you could include that on that email that would be great. Sure absolutely. Yeah again if you go to the MRPS website there's a section for the board that has everybody's email on the board. Amanda? Yeah I just want to thank you for your work and thank you for coming here to bring this information and we will make sure to share it also with the parents groups who are also disseminating this information. So on the MRPS website there's a MRPS well Emma will send you to join it. Thank you for coming. That's great thank you so much. Thanks folks. No thank you very informative. Consent agenda do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? I need to approve the consent agenda which includes minutes of policy committee meetings, superintendent and the values committee meeting, the critical committee school board meetings and warrants and accounts payable acknowledging the receipt of the 21 audit. Superintendent's report draft agenda for February 16th approving policy D7 special ed co-curriculars and contracts. I have a question about an item on there so I'm not sure if that's to make a motion with one item pulled it's a really quick question. Yeah. On the co-curricular contract it looks like something that we've already created a position for I just wondered why that was separate from the theater. Sorry it's for a choreography. That was not part of the position that we created for. And I still need a second. I'll second. Any further discussion other than addition to Jill's question? Okay great. All those in favor? All right. Any opposed? So as I said earlier we're adding oh hi Kristen Haria. Hi everybody. We are going to add appointments to the visioning committee. To the list we got several great candidates both from the community and from students who are also part of the community but adult community members and student community members. We have I think more applicants in there are positions for both. My thought after talking to Nathan is that we we choose the number that we slotted for adults and give those who we don't choose the option of being an alternate but they don't get a stipend. I would like to include all the students as possible and just make them all alternate and also we have to kind of deal with the stipend. I think we only have the stipend for people on the committee but my question is to try to give all the students some opportunity to be involved. You know it's a great slate and we can expand the number as well. But we can and I think should go into executive session to make those choices so we can discuss them off camera. But let's open the board discussion with that item and with the opportunity for anyone who submitted a letter of interest who also might want to say some words to this is your opportunity to speak if you want to again we did not require it and and there's no no need to and we will you know consider your your application without any prejudice if you if you do not. Yeah so please either please use the raise hand function and if you can't use the raise hand function turn your camera on and physically raise your hand excellent I don't see any either. Just question for the board in terms of do we want to do this selection now and then come back to the discussion about our medium of legislators and some follow-up there or do you want to wait a little later for executive session. I think in this room we could probably turn the camera off it's gonna have people leave in terms of the executive session. It seems like we have a couple people who are listening on for that legislative piece. Okay. I don't I can't tell who's in attendance and we can only see a list of four people in our view so if there's a bunch of candidates who are also on then I'm not sure if there are. I don't know if there are. Okay let's have our board discussion and then go into executive session just so people who are interested can can hear. Yeah so at our last board meeting we met with legislators they brought up I think some great issues. I know there was a expressed desire to continue the discussion around the Ed's fund surplus. There are also some desire to have further discussion around equity I know that was not mentioned on the agenda. I've communicated with both Emma and I think Emma you're going to reach out to it's equity policy committee. The coalition for Vermont student equity. Okay. They have somebody lined up to come speak at our meeting on the 16th. Okay so we'll be hearing more about that 16th. Also as you noted there are several boards that have supported I think yeah there's like there's about 25 school districts and so this is about the people waiting the waiting proposals that are in the legislature right now under consideration and so after the legislators presented to us at the last meeting I felt like I was not understanding all of the options that were had been presented and that were going to be up for a vote so I wanted to understand those options a little bit better and once I did my research I sort of realized I think there's an opportunity for us as a school district to be timely in our support of one of those proposals and it does seem like there you know the coalition for Vermont student equity has done a lot of work they've been doing it for years advocating for what will be the most equitable for the most students in the state of Vermont and you know we heard we heard the reference to winners and losers during our legislative presentation and Amanda brought up that maybe that's not the best way to look at it and I feel like a district of Montpelier is in a particularly well poised spot to sort of make a statement because a lot of people rightly or wrongly would perceive us as losers in some of these scenarios that are being presented and I don't see it that way personally and I think that as a district it would be as a school board it would be powerful for us to sort of stand up for what's the most equitable for the most kids in Vermont versus what's going to be best for our taxpayers you know in Montpelier so I see it as an opportunity to sort of stand with doing what's right for the most people in Vermont versus doing you know seeing it as a sort of winner and loser situation um so I'd like us all to sort of delve into the materials a little bit more and understand the options that are on the table and then if we see it as being you know something that we all can agree to I think it would be great for us to join the coalition as a school board there's there's um 25 school districts um school boards that are or school districts that are signed on and so we could join that group of people of folks okay the board should also know I was asked to testify on this on Friday so I will be testifying to the legislature on Friday they're interested in us because of our um not small but not large EL population right and the influence and just start hanging on the whole thing so Grant and I have been working on that testimony may I ask what your position is my position is they're going to they're going to change the way equalized people is handled so it's not to me it's not a winner or loser it's just how how it happens um either of the suggestions are a significant tax increase on our and on our citizens and so I think what Grant and I came down and I want to speak for Grant but is we hope that they do a transition period obviously so we can you know do this in a gradual way and don't get hit by a I think I saw it was like three million dollar additional tax burden with either model it's a three million plus so it's significant so they could do that over time I personally and Grant I think would agree with me the Grant model um in all honesty the agency of education does a really good job of making those incredibly burdensome for schools and could very well create a siloed system much like special education has in the past so I am not a huge fan of adding any more grants that the AOE runs um because honestly do with the additional burden more so than it already is I don't think the taxpayers will like us wanting to add grant managers onto our onto our the tax burden as well so I'm not necessarily I'm not a fan of the grant idea um as Grant said the equalized people piece is very complex but it's what we do now to make budgets so it's a known entity um so let's make let's get that right would be my opinion on it um and and then the legislature needs to know that you know because of um Montpelier's beautiful welcoming of Afghan refugee families uh we have 12 new English learners coming into our who are in our schools and they weren't here on October 1 for that count and so um and that's a significant impact on our on our system so you know I want to give them the realities of what we have in addition to that and then I'll stop this school in particular is influenced by this conversation because it's a school of below 40 people's and um that had some impact on us and our budgeting and how we think about our budgeting and whether we can sustain a small school like this so you know there's some suggestions in some of these conversations to almost incentivize schools to continue in this way but stopping for a school like this is incredibly hard so it's there there's some realities but I think we need to be put on the table in front of the legislatures. Grant did I capture everything that we were talking about? Yeah I think I was confused but because I saw this education fund surplus and it's different yeah so what we're talking about is equal as pupil calculations which will change the weight of funding formula which is a different thing I thought we were talking about like that magical 90 million dollars and how we're going to talk about that next but people like people came up and you know so yeah I think it's unfortunate they use the term winners and losers what it really means what they really should be saying is there are districts that are going to gain pupils and those that are going to lose pupils based on a calculation it's winners and losers is a horrible term to use because it just connotes so many other things but yeah I think the free and reduced calculation is going to be probably even a bigger thing for us than ELL it'll be because like right now I think the the weighting factor is like a 0.25 and if they do this it will be more like 2.5 which is a huge adjustment and our free and reduced population percentage yeah we're about 23 percent across the district yeah so in instead of just multiplying by 0.25 it's going to be multiplying by 2.5 which for people for districts with a high frl percentage they're going to see a huge increase in their equalized pupil count and we would not see that and all these things are connected because our free and reduced lunch rate is based on families filling out complicated paperwork which some do and some don't but when you don't when you don't charge for free reduced or when you don't charge for lunch why would they fill out the paperwork you know like there's things that are connected here and so if less people fill out the paperwork for lunch then that number goes down even more so it that number is not necessarily a real number of our community and the the base you were talking about with small schools it's not only there's like two adjustments that are being projected or or considered one is based on the number of kids in a school and the other is based on the population of the town so whether they're going to do one of those or both of those I don't know but it's that's it's a hard thing to think about because in some ways you're like act 46 was trying to consolidate now this is kind of going the opposite direction of almost incentivizing separation so it's a theoretical challenge to wrap your head around um and the only other thing I would say is they're asking about the thresholds the excess spending yeah right they had just a comment on that which was just like define them better or get rid of the excess spending deal with it and weights and then what was the other one that they're talking about that they haven't defined yet so a floor well I think what they were debating is whether they should legislate a a floor for education spending for people like a district can't come in at less than 12,000 right yes yes yeah um so I don't I don't know that that I think that's a kind of a dangerous road to go down to dictate a minimal amount because for for example some districts just don't have the ability to carry over surfaces so if they have a big surplus one year they have to budget that as a revenue in the following year and if they do that all of a sudden their spending per pupil could be really low but if there's a legislative limit then they would have to artificially increase so you know it it's a little scary because of some of the scenarios that you can see and and is is the thinking behind that to make sure that if there's a redistribution that's that rather than a district coming in saying okay we'll just spend the same as we spent last year but you know reduce our back space yeah there are several superintendents we're very concerned about that exactly how about it do you have your head up earlier yeah I mean I think this is uh I always think that it seems hard now but like this is the long term plan for students in Vermont right and and I think if we are serious about you know having an equity policy that we are caring about the student that that is what drives the volume and I think uh the EL you know talking about the EL participation for example and I include these are things that you know we can plan also like these are things that I've been pushing for like more translation more EL you know that that are just in line with the goals of districts that care about this population and I think that the the hybrid model that the college that is proposing which you know will allow for some some district to say well you know I prefer a grant than this hybrid model right now I think that will give that flexibility and I think that with the surplus of money and all these conversations this is the perfect time for Vermont to move towards an equity so I would like to see it like I think I would like to have this conversation more in depth because I think it is a value system that you know like we need to be able to say as a school board in that position um I think that's important um I have a couple quick questions and sorry everybody I was late um let's read the agenda I didn't see the rocks very far um so this is I have to admit in the past year roughly a year I haven't saw this as closely I followed it really closely when it was first coming out and read the weighting study I thought that was great work applying to a lot of really important issues with um inequities and how we fund schools in Vermont like the devils in the details I feel like it's spotlighted where that devil was if you will I was surprised because I went after last week Samoa to Emma I took some time and looked at the task force report and I didn't I didn't take a ton of time I just looked at like the highlights the recommendations things like that you might have talked about this so I apologize but I noticed that ELL it looks like they're not planning to add an extra weight or any extra money for ELL is that accurate that's the first proposal that's on the table they're still discussing it they're my understanding they're trying to figure out what to do okay because that was going to be my that was that was like that decision has happened maybe okay because it it I was really surprised to see that um and I found that to be very concerning just by the statewide level that it didn't appear that from from my quick review of this that there was an added value for those those students where there's clearly additional need and additional resources um so that was a concern I had with what I saw from this task force proposal now my second question is I I don't know if you have any insight into this levy um I've asked a little about this a little bit I have not again I haven't been paying close attention to this but it is it's it's in Senate finance right now and something that uh senator Cummings repeatedly said is we're just learning about this I think she said we're like in kindergarten not the stuff I realize that's an analogy but do we think that this is actually going to pass this year yes that's what I'm that's what I'm wondering okay I would be surprised if I didn't have a um so I mean I I don't feel like I'm an authority enough to to speak on it and that's why I'm really glad that somebody is going to be coming to speak at our next meeting um but just when I when I read through the materials and when I have a conversation with a friend of mine who is close to the issue um the hybrid model that the coalition is proposing sort of is the best of both worlds in a way where they do equalize they do um change the waiting across the board and include ELL but then there's this special category of I think they are referred to as low incident schools is that right there's okay so there's and that would and I think Montpelier falls into that category or there's a good chance that Montpelier would fall into that category and then the grants would come into play so and it's you know it all makes my head spin a little bit um but I'm glad we're going to be able to talk about it more when I when I hear the conversation in in from Grant's brain it's very heady and all about like budget and math and I do want to sort of like steer the conversation um towards our diversity equity and inclusion policy and really ask ourselves as a board and as a district you know if these are our values as a community to stand up for what's equitable for the most people and not just what's the best for our individual school district and and who knows maybe it will be the best for our individual school district but sometimes what's best for Montpelier school district isn't best for Wenuski you know and this type of legislation is is not looking at individual school districts it's looking at the whole state and sort of what's best for the most kids and so that's where I would like to sort of steer the conversation more towards um what our values are as a community and sort of which one of these proposals is best in line with with our values yeah we can continue that conversation next week or two weeks from now would it make sense to invite Senator Senator Perchlich back for for that meeting to ask him questions related to this he is the senator and he did serve on this task force and he is on the I'm just wondering yeah I don't in my opinion I don't think so I think that coalition is a very separate conversation on the task force felt or that there are there are some different the task force was not some of those models didn't was not part of the recommendations of the task force they happened after they had already recommended even though there was a lot of changes some of them specifically about the PLL category resolution that that piece of the people waiting so that was not a recommendation of the task force and then they legislator asked holding it to waiting and I would like to follow up with or and that's the recommendation that happens with all this portfolio so I mean the task force report so I'm just saying that I think one step at a time here for the coalition was doing the work who represents some of these the school boards the school districts that have a high PLL population and some of them are of those districts that voted on are well the two like all of them and so I haven't been part of this coalition just to be transparent because I didn't have time to put it in my brain I was like I cannot dedicate some time into that I've been getting their emails but I just like there's like asking somebody from this district to be to receive like to to look at this like really couldn't so figure it out in my brain and then so it was I think the Colby report was very transparent and clear from after the task force report and so I have been using to a lot of the public comments from senators who are the of all the reports that they have given and he thought that they so a little bit question what's the timeline I'm hoping I don't know I know they're meeting on it regularly they tried to have they asked very specific superintendents to come today actually to testify and none of us could and then they moved it to friday so we I mean there it seems like yeah it sounds to me also like it's moving pretty quickly and that you know if we board want to be vocal to influence anything but the time is sort of better happen quickly yeah yeah I mean we're looking at the two weeks from now to get the coalition to come in but at the same time they're moving ahead I was trying to get gauge and the lawmakers typically they're they're sort of calendar their mental calendar is they have a single crossover I think this week it's probably the poor town meeting because they're actually off that whole week so they I think they typically try to sort of get things from one side of the body to the other or at least get it like solidified so this doesn't have a bill number yet I think we figured out today but that doesn't mean anything because clearly there's like this momentum happening that like in the next couple weeks it's going to gel around it's probably going to be a committee bill I have a feeling and then it will have to go to the house the house and then they'll probably before that and it seemed like from what our legislators were saying last week is the reason why it's in the senate is because there are there are it impacts different districts differently within each senator's district whereas for the house members they may end up advocating for one versus another so what I gathered from what they were saying last week and this is just what I interpreted from what they said is it seems like they're taking that strategy because the senators sit at a higher level in geographic they cover a larger geographic area so to try and avoid some of the like jockeying that might a characteristic yeah thinking about it a little more broadly but I'm very interested to see what happens with this how is how's enrollment in snap currently determined is it also percentage of federal poverty level I'm pretty certain but is it something that that a family has to apply for or unless what's the direct certifications if a family applies through some direct certification you can accept that yeah it's if you're gross household income is equal to or less than 185 percent of the federal poverty level or you have children and get the per month per month I can see when the contacts got it are there members of this board that or living that have objections to the approach of the the coalition's recommendation I don't feel that I can can't have it in that opinion it's still so much sort yeah I don't feel I fully understand it either I mean I'm definitely supportive of the content concept I mean I do I do have a little bit of a fear that we make our community more expensive we're going to make it more elite and you know are there proposals to deal with that so you know Montpelier is already expensive already and it's one of the reasons that you know we have a population that's relatively privileged if we become a more expensive community to live into the entire tax rates that I think has probably the effect of making our community even more exclusive so I would like to see you know how that's dealt with one of the question is like how does again system values right they are the invest let's say I'm just you invest in this and then we look at other things I need to cut to lower that rate right like it's not like this is the only thing that's going to increase our tax rate this is why the budget says and this is why you look at your whole picture right again I think if I may just add on I appreciate the question because yeah I'm feeling like feel like you need to have some thoughts about the five different versions of this that are being discussed in the communities each day but I do want to make sure that whatever the weights are based on our our objective and not subjective so I do get worried if they're based on things that we can't quantify you know if we can't actually capture the actual need of our community in a number that translates to a weight that's that's challenging it'd be you know we need to be able to demonstrate a real need and not have it based on something that isn't necessarily reflective of the needs of our communities so if we can't if we if we're depending I'm one of those parents I get that form and I'm like oh thank god I'm not filling this out that if that's what that if those are the sort of things that our weight would be based on that requires work or grant applications or that kind of stuff then the less truly fair it is for the students it needs to be based on actual information actually exactly yeah exactly when my concern is not those that don't need to but those who can't but they benefit from that yeah I want to be clear my point was that yeah that if we're depending on people having to take an action that they may not know about or may not be able to take and those are the numbers that our weights are based on that's not really reflective of what the kids need is all I'm saying any of those barriers to that access that are thrown in the way makes it harder to actually if it's a grant application and like that a particular district doesn't have someone who's capable you know jumping through the hoops of a grant application and that leads to the district not getting with any that's not that's not fair that's all I want to be really clear it wasn't about just forms but any roadblock that can be put in place I mean showing the need is not really true access are there if I may ask one more question may there might there be ways for some of these for the board to come up with policies that allow us to assist in families and their need or is that a possibility or is everything mandated across the state equally I think we have to find out what but what the law is going to be first and then figure out processes those are those would be more procedures than policies that would be my it's my take yeah many of the systems are created to dignify poverty and that is what the whole process to apply for the under these lines to apply for this service if they work whether or not they have that need so it's like it's thinking about those barriers more to support those families and change that conversation around the significance that needs to happen in a very small level the work of the parents who send their backs for the year of change in that conversation around life we have you know just the invitation to think that should be free for people to come in versus like pay five bucks to find ways which limits those little things that make their shift in that stigma around poverty and access to it well I look forward to the to their presentation next week and I think if there's anybody else that we could invite if people feel that it's somehow biased or or you know weighted in one direction or the other if there was somebody else that we wanted to invite to sort of present multiple perspectives I'm totally open to that I was I asked last week about and I know that the legislature's joint fiscal office is stretched then so I don't based on their response and based on the people I know who work there I don't think we're gonna get anybody from there but it would be great and Brad James is probably stretch super thin he's like he's probably thinking I'm not there's no way he's he's thinking he's gonna he's gonna present on this just for our school board it should be like then do it for make it available could be one presentation available like every school board kind of thing but I think it would be helpful I want to hear from this coalition I appreciate what this coalition is trying to accomplish my general thought is it would be helpful for us to have some additional information that's not from a 501c4 organization even though you know I support many 501c4 organizations that's kind of irrelevant a 501c4 organization is advocating for something and it would be great if we could get kind of a balanced overview of the situation just like something that's like here are the options on the table here's what the legislature is thinking here's what was proposed in the study here's here here are the main options that are on the table and here's how they compare with each other and here's how they impact these different populations we've had that in the past in an ideal world that's how democracy would function would have that information and would make a decision based on that information unfortunately I'm not certain that that information is out there right now you know with the superintendent's association the sba I haven't seen them put anything together on this uh no the superintendent's association is just responding to requests to testify and it is based on money one more testifying you know it's based on how things influence you financially um that's what they're asking us to testify on they were very specific and the reason why they're asking me to testify versus b32 superintendent you know because of our specific numbers and our specific budgetary needs so yeah so if you come up with anyone I would say invite them to the meeting I don't know I'm Andrew Stein we'll come up with anyone if anybody else here does I'm not really yeah I think it's important for the board to be clear about what your outcome is as well because the what this is the legislature's job to to decide on what's going to happen um and this board may be able to advocate for a position um but that's that would be what the board is doing yeah right is is not simple advocacy but that's that's what it is there's no vote to be had with the board other than do we advocate for a certain position or not well I think the request though is that my understanding though I'm out what you're asking for and Amanda what you're asking for correct is that we join this organization correct that we join that we put our support behind their recommendation yeah which would be yeah and um and from what I've heard there's a possibility of one or two senators in our county being um you know deciding votes so I think it would be very two of them are very very critical so I think we are in a unique position as a school district that is seen as privileged as a school district who's seen as a potential loser and and a district that's in in you know in the constituency of a couple of very prominent senators on this issue so I think we're in a unique position to potentially make our voice heard if you look at the list of school districts I think it's very telling the school districts that have already signed on to support this proposal they tend to be more rural lower income more um diversity districts and so um you know just my gut feeling is like this it could be an opportunity for us to stand in support of those other school districts who are really struggling so I see it as an opportunity for us to stand firm in our values around equity and um you know if I'm totally open to being like educated I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on the issue I would love for more people to come and talk to me I only I'm only basing it on the research that I've done so far and and I felt pretty strongly based on the research I did and who I was speaking to but um but if there's more input I would love to hear it you know yeah I just like an overview for the board that's where I that's what I was asking the legislators last week is if there was somebody who could yeah I think you're getting a little bit of the senator marty's report and you too there's people like she's testifying every committee in the past month about the the task force I would just say that in line with MIS idea like we need to be informed that for me that the conversation is not just about like your equity but like how should we start the next district you know okay what does it mean and then you can make a decision um because I think it's important I think that's what I could pass in is like I don't really understand how the people waiting will impact that I still don't know that I still don't have those senses of financials off I could I I want to be informed about that like that because like what does it mean like what does it actually mean on the ground for some someone that doesn't have the financial background to understand what the impact is like what does it look like what are those scenarios because I think that's how we can get there right being able to actually know how to I want to be mindful of the agenda I feel like we have this on the agenda at our next meeting yeah absolutely let's no I was just I want to say it was a good conversation I think yeah conversation um so talk about the education funds surplus I think this might be an easier conversation I'm certainly in support of reinvesting that in our schools but I'll open it up to the floor I think you know given that you know Burlington is in filings and we've we've got a you know 100 year old middle school that certainly could use a little tlc and the pcb law the pcb law we have yeah we've certainly heard a lot about lead throughout you know Vermont it seems like there's a lot of good we could do to invest in our kids and invest in our infrastructure with 90 million dollars other than you have a gimmick of local scott I have a question on that um when we talk about reinvestment and maybe this is too early but are there going to be any restrictions are there going to be any guidance around what we could do with it what we can't do with it are you deciding we're not deciding yeah so the governor of the legislature will be deciding it in terms of if it if it's decided that if it was decided that it's going to be reinvestment would the governor be kind of reinvesting in schools across the Vermont or in the kids well one of his proposal is in his budget address but to to give it that but yeah I'm kind of flipping that if it was decided that it's going to be reinvesting or reinvestment of funds how would that do we have any idea how that would work on that money the legislature would decide I believe they have the budgetary power theoretically it would lead to the following year some kind of adjustment to the spending could be a certain way but the tax rate wouldn't change but I don't think that's really what's going on I don't think that's how they have their planet I mean if I when I look at my crystal ball that PCB law is significant and we'll have direct we'll have way more people in Macy's you know as a result of Burlington if any indicator of that would you give us like a Twitter version of what the PCB lies it's it's the poly plural whatever contamination in school buildings sure yeah probably whatever yeah we got our environmental requirement for testing and then theoretically if the testing comes a certain way there's there's a requirement for testing but there is no and for remediation but there's no budget to mediate as we've learned from the Burlington example it could potentially mean new schools across Vermont which are let's face it expensive right so that is significant I've talked to the board on numerous occasions about the need to increase capacity across the state particularly in central Vermont for mental health support to schools we cannot solve the mental health prices that we see right now schools cannot do it without without outside agencies and so if you're going to you're going to put it anywhere put it in community mental health organizations to increase the capacity that other things I think about it that we will have a significant teacher shortage and administrator shortage coming up very quickly and so how do we invest in teachers to get them to come to the scene you want to be a teacher cutting pensions it's not a good option for that so that's another piece of it um moving back to the equity conversation how do we invest in Vermont so that we diversify our community from because schools can't solve that either by ourselves so how do we how do we think about that because that's what's good for kids so there's some things I'm thinking about with with an ed surplus fund um that doesn't have to do with myself and the taxpayer getting a $250 checking bill and those are all well over 90 million bucks oh I know I know they are so how do you yeah but what you I yeah yeah I mean I'm reverting pcb alone if it's uh gonna be going with a 90 million yeah if it's a you know pervasive problem if it was important enough to pass the law then you need to pass something for you know this idea I don't actually know the the proposal that's on the table it's it's to give individual families sort of a a rebate a gift that's fine okay and so something that governor spot said many months ago when we were sort of in the depths of the pandemic the early stages early stages and depths if that's a possible convention really you said something to the effect of you know they were about to get a whole bunch of federal money and he said something like you know I want to be able to look back on the way that we spent this money and feel like we made a lasting impact and remember what we spent the money on and look back and be able to say you know wasn't that a great use of money look at what it did for us and I don't think individual family rebates you know at the amount of money that we're talking though I'm sure it would you know make an impact on a lot of individual families I would much rather see the money be spent on something that makes like a broader impact for more people and is more lasting in the memory of Vermonters so I will echo the sentiments of the person who spoke at public comment and definitely in support of us advocating publicly for for us to reinvest that money rather than give individuals a tax regime. Right just one other thought is that there is a certain amount of surplus that is expected to be in the budget because of the fact that the Ed fund health could be really bad and if something could turn sideways on you and if you don't have that surplus to tap into then like this year we had that big increase in the dollar yield you could see a big drop in the dollar yield and tax rates could go through the roof but having some surplus there so the tax commissioner could recommend using some of that to help control tax rates is good so I don't think it's a I don't think it's an all or nothing I think the advocate the advocate position might be just don't give it all back and either reinvest which might take some time to think about how and also to leave some of it in there just as a control. I mean coming from the guy who has led this board and the district to have a very healthy capital plan and fund balance right it's like we've we've steered the ship to a place where yes we are saving money and we're we're having surplus but we're saving that surplus and then we're reinvesting it and I think that's been a very great strategy that has helped the condition of our schools and helped us through the pandemic and in a lot of ways so I think we should stick with that philosophy with grants. To be clear the the general amount of fund balance that we had to help with that is pretty much the statutory amount that's required in the fund that's a reserve fund for the exact type of prices that we found ourselves in and we actually drew all of that down plus as and as an estate during like what it was like it was mid 2020 that was crazy but then because of all of the federal federal money what that did was huge for on so many levels it kept people spending money which cut sales and use tax up which was huge for the ad fund like sales and use tax revenue all of it goes to the ad fund and that was really really big but also all of the federal dollars that this district and the other districts got. Yeah I think the difference being what Emma was saying though is that before we knew the federal money was coming there was not a moment where I as a superintendent needed to worry that we couldn't do something for our community that was needed you know and even now we need K and 95 math debt goer you know like it's not a question for us because of our healthy fund dollars which is due to grants beautiful financial work but um that that's not the same in every district you know across the state. I'm wondering I'm thinking about the staffing questions and I'm thinking about the lack of people that are able to serve in our community in the total dating season I'm wondering about scholarships and educational programs whether they be at the college level or even at a tech center level that will prepare people to assist. I don't know exactly what that looks like but 45 million dollars to help boost programs in the tech center that can get kids and as individual assistance into schools starting their careers and um you know whether it's maybe it's a two-year associate program that gets somebody uh into a situation where they can go work in our community mental health agencies that agencies pay really poorly that no return no ability to retain um the need is it's just ballooning and it's and even for substance use problems that's ballooning during this pandemic situation you know um so that's I'm curious of what what are the sort of minimal educational achievements that need that people need to get so that they can support the schools not necessarily as a full teacher but quicker you know um and uh potentially have a job with a community mental health agency that allows them to get into the schools and the department ship um one of the problems is dcf is over here corrections is over here education the Department of Education is over here economic services is different group and they're all attempting to play a role in supporting people that have great needs they have different buckets that their money is coming from they can't coordinate they can't work together if they can work together and it costs us 45 million dollars that could potentially have a lasting benefit for the state um just to coordinate agencies and their ability to respond to some of these problems some thoughts that I've had about how to re-invest that money to support the team all right um in terms of all of us are well you know I I think there's the conversation around what are the themes that are across districts right which you know I can make less of the things that impact us that impact other districts as well that's like bullying hazing harassment mental health systems that are flow restorative just the system that are flow that leads to corrections and leads to policing um the lack of summer camps that support students who are behind um literacy issues around testing and all of that curriculum development retention of BIPOC teachers because I think that a lot of the conversations around let's diversify but we're losing BIPOC because of the culture in the districts are not but we just have three BIPOC teachers switch in the last week because the culture is so important for them so I think not in the district but to be clear but um so I think that like this this there's a system shift that needs to happen around like the piece meals approaches to the change that we need to make here's $95 million in one of the opportunity spaces somebody had a great idea of hiring for the district two people that can evaluate the mental health system of our community like who's there how do we join the system together how do we support the school as a community or the thing you have someone to do the systems thinking collaborate with all the groups that are in existence the model like that that can be replicated in all the other districts where there is a lack of wish to mental health like all of the systems uh we have really brilliant people in many many parts of the state that are working alone so how do we get them together to bring up so I think part like our systems are flawed because they're not connected because they are disjointed and we can buy a lot of infrastructure but to for what so that our students are not inside if I the work that we need right now this I think is like a system shift that we need to do like I don't think about how to think about schools not as if I did school but as a community place where all this connection happened and that the job is not just for the school the job is for all of us in these communities to come to me so I think my name here for the rest of the system there's great people doing great work but not everybody has the privilege to know them I'm surprised I don't see a coalition with that similar kind of coalescing for this topic it's almost like this is like a really immediate need where there needs to be some sort of an entity and perhaps the school board association or the principal or superintendent that has the sort of we can give you those things that the education fund desperately should be paying for I haven't seen that the way that I've seen a coalition with actual concrete I know it's from the waiting and I do worry just because I want I'm seeing my limited oversight I'm not seeing the specificity of that and therefore in in lieu of that if you're not at the table you're on the menu I'm worried about where this is going to go very unhelpful comments and and to be clear this night just so everyone is aware of the Ed fund there's five percent reserve in there and there's additional reserve and then there's this is this unreserved unallocated 90 million dollars so it really and there's a lot I'm sure there are a lot of legislators that also have ideas for this so I appreciate what you're saying because our school board isn't going to have much influence over this but like the VFBA school board speaking as one saying these are important issues that you could be using this money for that's that's how you know that'll ring you know that'll that'll that'll convey the message clear to legislators and the governor and the ministry to solicit it all the schools are saying hey we're on board we're on board maybe maybe not better chance than if we're just using as what is your public business on the school just right now but I think there is a chance of our vote there you know to say this is what we see and I know that the other people will echo I I'm in a bullying harassment and hating council or just submit a recommendation to the secretary of french who asked like what do we do with this one I was like oh here's a litle of things we need to do we need you to hire blah blah blah blah so I think you know being able to have groups or school boards that say here's some of these things and then you can you know we can ask the coalition this coalition of other school boards to do everything or to like Joan if we wanted to advocate I think there are ways to do it the school board association has other interests as well I think so I think we need kind of move the conversation along is I mean I actually want to do something for something that's doable that we do they'll have some sort of impact is it a letter just from the board the governor is it which does the school board the situation to see if there's a coordinated effort we can join is it both I think it's both who wants to take the lead on either one of those I nominate Jim Murphy Jim Murphy is very little fun either one I mean I could reach out to the school board if someone wants to put together some sort of letter I just reach out to the students see if there's a coordinated effort to get back okay okay thanks Amanda and our senator all right um any any more on this or is that kind of a good good next step we don't have to we don't need to like pass a resolution or anything like that I don't think so I mean I think we'd want to you know I think once we have a draft we'd want to review it and make sure we're comfortable with it okay um and what's the timeline on on that decision do we know and what oh that's going to be that's that's that's that's that's doesn't have that's probably going to be like in the big those that's may or June okay okay so we've got some time to the perfect letter yeah and but we want to start reading the narrative might also yeah just thinking might better to the editor no no no I think we start with something uh so next item is um update on the community input from the board does reach on the sir is that you so should we move should we do the executive session for the appointments to the vision committee you can do that now if you want to I'm happy and good at that what do you want to say move it to the end yeah yeah okay they don't have to wait for yeah okay um is that you Amanda yeah yes it was like oh on this question on so I uh I would say that we had three really successful beautiful uh affinity spaces with lots of great ideas which I share with you I would say you read them you didn't we should um and then maybe share with our administrators and um Kristen me and I match our equity committee with the idea that we still want to do a little more we've got we still want to reach out to the um families who are struggling financially to just hear their voice what you know what ideas they have and so Mia is going to um develop an employer where Mia can have a session or two we wanted to offer it to you all if you want to have a lunch session so I can put in a flyer with assumed if you like meet with a school board and give just people more chances I did develop some some surveys for each of the affinity spaces to kind of recent to families who didn't make it say hey we still have time to wait in if your voice hear the feedback in case you're missing something I mean generally I think the echo many of the conversations that echoes both things we've heard here especially so we had special ed literacy uh BIPOC lgbtq and you know so we have five affinity spaces I let the BIPOC near diverse uh lgbtq and then Mia BIPOC lgbtq and then uh Kristen did a rock very little session with the BIPOC so so those are there and maybe we'll share that with you and yeah I mean in summary I think it's some of these topics right around reserve justice around curriculum development by contents uh around being able to be seen in terms of the BIPOC lgbtq community disability folks about how we tell the stigma and all of that about access to interventions early before you know it triggers the law you know we can do um in terms of uh anyways you can read it and it's there the question we have for you is if you want a more formal report we could do I did get from the AOE the dates of the answer three and so just what we wanted to ask you about that timeline the applications do in March it's March yeah we just had a meeting about it this morning um for the so what with so the question to you is what do you think from us and how would you like to incorporate those plans and if we get more in a couple of weeks or do you not want us to get it more um where are the stages well we need to start making some decisions it has to go through a public comment period you know the plan has to go through a public comment period so we need and then and we need time to actually write the grant um so we're pretty much if you think about where we are this four year with February break coming up very quickly we're pretty much at the point where we need to we need to put a plan together to present to the community so there isn't a whole lot of times left okay when you think about all of those things I'm curious how many people were at each um I can I can share so for the five pop it was like six finally uh the lyrics of 11 you know the I don't I don't know if the lyrics it was me I think about the neurodiverse about the 11 I have to like look at the numbers but it was a small number but pretty representable the same conversation that happened in the district so I think nothing else would cry throughout what I'll do is I'll put that google back because anytime it's updated I know Kristen had to put some things in from rvs anytime it's updated I'll just put that link into the public plan document that's on the website and so when anybody updates it it will just automatically okay that's great that's great yeah yeah so we will come here and try to do just a few more and then give that google forum to the people um I'm not sure if you had a chance to actually send it to like the flyer to the groups that you have you said that you had some the serfs but did you have a chance to do it but I I'm not sure if I actually did you look at an email where you look like this so so she can send this down the server with it I have I have three google forms four google forms set up with links to that that specific affinity space so that people can read it while it's set and add more to but not in that condenser I will take that so you can send those three is that okay if I don't want thank you for doing that yeah thank you any questions for london or questions in the process okay yeah no thank you for doing that um london and i know me it's not the earring well sorry sorry I'm catching bits and pieces I have an executive assistant in the room with me right now um so um yeah I think I'm on the so that there's just going to be um some outreach to families experiencing financial hardship and I think what we talked at the meetings that if there was a way to send that opportunity out um like Libby if you had I don't know if that kind of data gets collected and there's a way to kind of anonymously send that out like if that was part of the outreach that you did over the summer but that there was an interest to figure out if we could get that in front of folks that you know it would be relevant for you had an avenue I did check with Anna to make to see if she has uh I'm like she was having internet problems at home so she may or may not be on but yeah I have to check with Anna to see if she's a listener for that particular group I'm not sure if she did or not okay that's pretty perfect protected information yeah yeah and we had discussed that too and just let you know knowing that we that's a tough that's one moment please that's a tough label and so we just want to be really sensitive to that but because of you know that experience that we wanted to be able to hear back from folks and how those circumstances could be could be met and could be sort of supported by by what the what the plan includes and I did have a question for Libby um around the thinking for that XH3 funding around because that came out a lot around the summer program and um and is that it's like it's thought we're actually it'll be we actually have a lot of money left over from the Essar 2 line budget line for summer programming so that's an Essar 2 not an Essar 3 but for the intervention not for like the summer we haven't talked about intervention it's not something that's happened before Montpelier Roxbury I'll tell you it there's a lot of research that says it has to be done in a certain way for a certain length of time in order to have any kind of impact on students I go back and forth if we want our own teachers to do that kind of work our own teachers are burnt out and that's their time to relax so I unless they're working a second job which some do yeah but uh and often that second job is kind of fun right yeah or at least a bunch of gears yeah switching gears and all that kind of stuff so um I go back and forth on it because there's something that we can ask them so that we but I mean it's not even the so the question so two questions one question is what is our teachers two questions the second question is like do we do we have a program and then we ask other teachers or not districts to serve our kids for in-room workshops so um just like it just a question I have I wrote something about the summer intervention and what's common especially because now all the summer cons are coming up and people are then I think there's lots of different perspectives on on that piece and so I'm not sure right now it's not dedicated to intervention services opportunities six years of play school coming up how to catch up before yeah it's kind of the idea of catch up is is arbitrary as well hi hi and some things I realized I sent something to Kristen last week but I wanted to add this on so based on the question she asked and it pertains the funding for some things that we've talked about the past couple of weeks um recreational cannabis uh is set to that market is set to open this year and six percent of all recreational campus sales are to be used in law um for after school and summer education programs and uh in FY 25 once the market has ramped up more it's forecasted to generate between roughly four million to eleven million dollars a year that's a sales tax component of cannabis sales I just wanted folks to know that the first talk about money for after school in summer program in the past few weeks I realized I just sent out a person I didn't send it yeah for the summer programming we've never done it before so and we're not a 21c district so the the challenge is is that we don't have a position to run summer programming so that's what you know if we got extra money to do that that would be awesome because uh we have a very limited slate of actors who are working in the summer right now so Matlin Karan our sports camp's last year and he's ready to do so again this year but you know he's running sports camps because that's his thing he's the athletic director if we want to do other things or the board wants us to do other things then we need to we would need to hire a position to do that yeah and I have to look in the law the law says how that money is to be there's like some structure it's it's loose though it might just be like an ALA an ALU grant program or something along the way I can't remember it maybe it's something I don't know that's helpful I don't know that money can well spend um I couldn't potentially in the future uh um so now the uh long-awaited finance video update and it can take a little bit you were the one who wasn't looking at anybody else yeah I was looking at my computer I thought that was a safe thing to do um all right well um we have uh the audit report that I guess we uh we got it already getting um just to summarize that and um just to I guess um kind of being a conduit from grant to you guys we've had a very successful audit um the report's been fantastic um the team grant and his folks have done a fantastic job there have not been any corrections or I don't know the exact language grant but there were no finance findings yeah there are four or five things that that were listed in grant went to each one of them and they were you were satisfied with the reasoning and um what grant had told us so all in all it's just a very successful um art report as far as the quarter four final um 2021 quarter four final report there were no changes that we needed to make or we made so the project number we were 99 is it right 96.31 percent in terms of expenditures and 99.5 percent in terms of revenue um we the the surplus was little more than what we had anticipated which is a in a way good thing um and there were um various reasons for it but they all uh made sense and then finding move around to the quarter two 2022 um numbers uh we are uh the expenditures are almost in line with what we think there were a couple of categories which we were we are a little higher than what we thought we would be and and a couple of them lower again I can go into details but all within reason and all what we anticipate would be similarly revenues we we're expecting about 52 averaging 52.5 percent in terms of overall numbers at this point and we're at actually that's 31.94 so they're very close to where you would like to be grant uh or anybody else Jill um have I missed anything and it all is in your is it in our practice yeah and one of the things of the audit is we need to have um receive the letter that's what we need to acknowledge that we have received that letter and the fact that that's it so we do need a motion to approve the two financials yeah great uh well any any questions on the presentation before we get to a motion uh do I have a motion to approve Kristen do you have a question no question all set thanks um motion to approve the the two separate motions are going to do laws one let's do them too just to be extra extra careful uh motion to approve the FY 21 fourth quarter financial report so move second second uh any discussion all those in favor all right uh and a motion to approve the FY 22 second quarter financial report second second we'll be there um any discussion all those ever hi hi um great so now we can uh we need a motion to go into executive session for the purpose of appointing committee members to the um visioning committee and I guess a question can we bring Nathan do we want to bring Nathan in as a consultant which I think we're allowed to do the purpose would be to discuss candidates not to appoint them I would suggest bringing Nathan in yes uh did you have to discuss the appointment of candidates and then we will come back out of the direction of motion so um so do I have a motion for that purpose no oh discuss it yeah um do I have a second I second it uh ever hi in your pose great so we need to make that motion again okay I for four weeks you you make you move that's I'm a second Sigrid Olson Melissa Hauser Tina Munze Caitlin Brower and Dottie Gweefrey as adults community representatives to the visioning committee Ford and Joe Carroll Carroll as staff slash faculty uh Esther Lean Carlson Kale Ellingson Merrick Maudoon Amira Lewis Elliott Muller Emory Richardson Amelia Woodard the Carmans Richardson Skinder as student representatives and Amanda as a board representative and did you get Joe in yeah all to the visioning committee yes I can do thank you everyone